IndonesiaNot yet a dream; no longer a nightmare

AMIEN RAIS, a leader of the mass protest movement that brought down the authoritarian Suharto regime ten years ago this week, is being interrogated on a television satire show, “Republik Mimpi” (“Republic of Dreams”) by two impressionists dressed as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his vice-president, Jusuf Kalla. “Why is your new book called ‘Save Indonesia'?” harrumphs the fictional vice-president, “Don't you think we are already doing everything possible to save it?” The studio audience titters. Moments later, tvOne, the station airing the show, cuts in with an apt but genuine news flash about big demonstrations erupting against the decision by the real-life president and his deputy to slash fuel subsidies, to save the country from financial ruin.

Lampooning those in authority would have been unthinkable in Suharto's time. Even now, the creators of “Republic of Dreams” have struggled to keep their show on the air. It moved to tvOne in February, the second time it has switched channels, after its previous broadcasters found it a bit too hot to handle. Remarkably, its new station is part-owned by the family of Aburizal Bakrie, a government minister and businessman who has often been the butt of the show's humour. Effendi Gazali, the show's creator, says Mr Bakrie will have to endure being sent up on his own station, “or we'll quit!”

Some politicians moaned that the show flouted Indonesian cultural traditions of respect for authority. However, says Mr Gazali, a poll in 2006 found that only about one-fifth of the public—mostly the elderly—bought this self-serving argument. The programme's success has spawned imitators on other channels.

In two rulings, in December 2006 and July 2007, the Constitutional Court struck out clauses in the criminal code that had made it a crime to insult senior figures. Undeterred, officials have dredged up other obscure clauses to have several journalists jailed over critical articles about them. But the chances are that the court will strike these down too, when it hears the journalists' petitions, and that those in power will have to get used to criticism.

The tenth anniversary of Suharto's downfall, just four months after the former president's death, has prompted a debate over how far democracy has progressed in Indonesia—the most populous Muslim-majority state, with 226m people. Besides a free press, the country now has vigorously contested elections at all levels, from president down to village chief. All the main parties, including several that are nominally Islamist, seem committed to pluralism. In its annual report in January, Freedom House, an American think-tank, rated Indonesia the only “free” country in South-East Asia.

Dream on

Although Suharto's authoritarianism is a distant nightmare, Indonesia is not yet a dream republic, hence the ironic title of Mr Effendi's show. Demos, a Jakarta think-tank, this month published a survey of over 900 Indonesian “experts” on the state of democracy in the country. They concluded that it is now as entrenched as it is in India and that the openness and honesty of state institutions is improving. However, despite the recent victories for press freedom, Demos noted a deterioration in other liberties since its last survey, in 2003-04, notably religious freedom.

A topical example of this is the demand by a semi-official group of Muslim clerics to ban Ahmadiyah, a “heretical” sect. Mr Yudhoyono at first intended to go along with this proposal, to appease the small but aggressive Islamist minority. Now, after an outcry by liberals, the president is dithering—his default mode.

As its parliament shows, Indonesia has a secular-minded and fairly liberal majority. But Eva Sundari, an opposition lawmaker and one of Demos's panel of experts, worries that progressives are failing to find a common voice against a few “very organised and systematic” religious conservatives. These now represent the main menace to Indonesia's development as an open society.

It used to be the army that was the main threat to democracy. In Suharto's day it dominated politics. Not any more. Generals sometimes grumble about modern freedoms, and some may run in next year's elections on a ticket of nostalgia for the strict “order” of pre-1998 days. But Mr Rais reckons the top brass realises democracy is the only option.

There has still been no justice for the many victims of the Suharto era. And, especially in distant bits of the Indonesian archipelago, such as Papua, abuses by the security forces continue. On May 16th a United Nations report noted that torture of suspects remains widespread. The soldiers have lost political clout but are still capable of closing ranks to preserve their impunity. Nevertheless, there is nothing like the systematic, top-down repression of pre-democratic times.

The army has left politics since Suharto's downfall. But his party, Golkar, is still very much around. A common worry on democracy's tenth birthday is that rich politician-businessmen, especially in Golkar (Mr Bakrie and Mr Kalla are two prime examples), can lavish big money on election campaigns to keep themselves in power. Fortunately, this does not always work: in an election in West Java last month, a young candidate from a small, moderate Islamic party beat big guns from Golkar and other main parties.

Indonesia's courts, prosecutors and police are still subject to political meddling. Powerful people get lenient treatment, whereas the ordinary people who annoy them are sometimes punished harshly—a man from Maluku province recently got a life sentence for waving a separatist flag at the president. Much still needs fixing in Indonesian democracy. But at least it seems pretty secure. And in the meantime, the satirists are not short of material.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Not yet a dream; no longer a nightmare"